All in Discipleship
I came to deeply admire and respect the faith of my brothers and sisters in Christ in Argentina. We didn’t always agree on theological points of view or ministerial practice but I loved and admired their profound faith and faithfulness to the way of Jesus.
I have questions about the story in John 8 about the woman caught in adultry. I want to know what Jesus wrote when they were trying to trap him between loving people and keeping God’s Word.
Individually, we are only a grain of salt, and a grain of salt by itself is not very useful. It doesn't season anything. It doesn't preserve anything. Salt must be used in handfuls to fulfill its function. The church is the salt of the earth as a community, and therefore, it must preach the gospel as a community.
Church is meant to be more than a bearer of ideology. We are to be a pilgrim people, journeying together on the difficult yet rewarding path of becoming more and more godly each day, while inviting others to join us on that journey.
Consider a single thread and how easily it can be snapped or broken when pulled from opposite ends. Then look at a braid, where each strand is no longer individual but is plaited to form a stronger, interlocking structure.
Though we likely believe that God is in what we feel called to do, there is a serious temptation towards doubt and apprehension towards failure in those partnering with God’s Spirit in kingdom building.
So ask yourself, am I feeding my flesh, or am I feeding my soul? Am I merely wearing the name of Jesus, or is His Spirit shaping my life?
We talk about God’s love shown through the death of His Son on the cross for our sins. Baptism is the way we share in that death and in that love. We talk about our sins being buried. And lately, we have been talking quite a bit about the power of resurrection and baptism.
Let us pray that God sends Barnabases to our churches! Let us pray that He will make some of us “sons of encouragement”! The need couldn’t be greater today!
Conflict is to be expected; get in there and work on it. Possibly the best gift for your congregation is conflict training. The longer you wait, or the more you let fear paralyze you, the worse it gets.
With this article, we offer our perspectives, regrets, and takeaways of our conflict, so that others may learn to behave with more skill and wisdom. In this first part, we’ll talk about how we got to that point of conflict, and the actions we took to try to resolve things.
In the Old Testament, priests were called by God, had access to God, and were separated out because of God’s calling. Just like them, we are also called by God. We have access to God, and God has separated us out and marked us for His service.
We expect all of our members to be doing these three things: pray, invite, ask. The only problem with this is that we found it to be a catchy phrase, but we needed more depth and understanding. Pray what? Invite to what? Ask what?
God is the Help of the helpless. God is also the Hope of the hopeless. Oh, that we might all lose hope and embrace hopeless despair in order to discover our true Hope.
The effectiveness of leadership can be measured by the willingness to delegate responsibilities to qualified men and women. Men and women “attested to by the community,” filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, are the ones who should be leading the programs of the congregations.
How often in ministry do we try to give people what we think they need? Whether that is in a pastoral counseling session or in upcoming class offerings or even from the pulpit, many times we think we know the answer to people’s situations without hearing where they are coming from.
What is true? What is pure? What is praiseworthy? These are the things we are to focus on. We must also practice the things we have learned in Jesus.
As I waited for God to speak, I became increasingly disillusioned by His silence. As someone in vocational ministry, I felt inferior to those who heard from God often. I feared the silence because I thought I wasn’t disciplined or important enough to hear Him.
Only God could plant a church like this. And if He could do it then, He can certainly do it now. Listen to God. Talk about Jesus to everyone. Baptize all of them. Plant a church full of people that have only one thing in common: Jesus.
When God connects saints and sinners, it is often the saint he is moving. Philip. Ananias. Peter. Sometimes he connects the seeker. The Ethiopian. Saul. Cornelius. Sometimes the person who at least on the surface has no God-interest.
